Word: kozara
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...summer of 1942, following some of the bitterest fighting of World War II, German soldiers supported by troops of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia crushed a band of resistance fighters on Mount Kozara in western Yugoslavia. In the aftermath of the battle, according to controversial -- and still unauthenticated -- new evidence, an officer belonging to Ustasi, the local fascist forces, sent a telegram calling for the removal of civilians to nearby concentration camps. Named in the telegram as the source of the order: Lieut. Kurt Waldheim, then a supply officer in the German army and now the beleaguered President...
...genuine, the telegram would be the first document directly linking Waldheim, 69, to possible war crimes in the Kozara campaign, in which an estimated 60,000 Yugoslav civilians died. It could also give the lie to Waldheim's steadfast denial that he participated in atrocities, and would indicate, as a Western diplomat put it, that Waldheim was "part of the conveyor belt that committed them...
...evidence was unveiled last week by Yugoslav Historian Dusan Plenca, 63, who has spent more than 40 years studying the World War II campaigns in his country and has published seven books on the subject. Says he: "As far as I am concerned, Kurt Waldheim's role on Mount Kozara has been proved." Plenca has turned over his Waldheim documents to Yugoslav Journalist Danko Vasovic, who plans to publish them in the spring. But Vasovic apparently could not wait to spread the news. Last week he sold the publication rights for the controversial telegram and other materials to Der Spiegel...
...Spiegel, which is publishing the document this week, released its text last weekend. It reads in full: "Very urgent. Lieutenant Kurt Waldheim of General Stahl's staff requests that 4,224 prisoners from Kozara, consisting mainly of women and children and about 15% of old men, be sent on the way: 3,514 to Grubisino Polje and 730 to Zemun." Both were transit camps, channeling people to labor or concentration camps in Germany and Norway. There was no explanation of why the total (4,224) differed from the sum of the two separate figures...
...remaining war years finishing his studies. He later admitted he was a first lieutenant on the staff of German Group E in the Balkans from 1942 to 1945. But he repeatedly denied he was aware of atrocities committed during the brutal German roundup of partisans in the Kozara region of Yugoslavia in the summer of 1942. More than 60,000 people were sent to concentration camps during the campaign, and thousands died in the process. Investigators also believe that Waldheim participated in the deportation of Greek Jews to Nazi death camps in 1944 and helped turn over Allied prisoners...